


Reign

by AbstracttReality



Category: DreamSMP, Minecraft (Video Game), Video Blogging RPF
Genre: Gen, dream gets a poorly written possession arc as a treat, that's really all this is
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-19
Updated: 2021-01-27
Packaged: 2021-03-17 23:22:04
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 6,451
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28857267
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AbstracttReality/pseuds/AbstracttReality
Summary: "The heaviest penalty for declining to rule is to be ruled by someone inferior to yourself." -Plato
Relationships: No Romantic Relationship(s)
Comments: 7
Kudos: 20





	1. SYSTEM STARTUP

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[ERROR]

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[ERROR]

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>admin overrule 

PLEASE ENTER YOUR PASSWORD 

**************

WELCOME DREAMWASTAKEN

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this is binary btw (:


	2. Reign

“Okay so it’s like…I dunno,” Dream shrugs, listening to the echo of his voice in his head. He hears everyone’s at this point, and honestly it feels weirder than not hearing them. 

“It’s just a server room,” He scratches his head. Thankfully, his mask hides the blush that spreads across his face. Tommy gives him a critical look.

“If it was just a server room then I would’ve known about it by now.” Tommy declares. “Because I know everything about this server.” Dream gives a little mocking laugh. 

“Whatever,” Dream says. “You do not.”

“Sure I do!” Tommy waves his hands in front of him. “Ask me anything about the server, Big D.”

“Don’t call me that,”

“Okay, Clay,” Tommy sniggers. Dream punches him with enough force to make him stumble backwards a few steps. 

“Ummmm,” Dream thinks. “Where’s Sapnap?”

“He’s not on,” Tommy responds, puzzled. Dream smirks under his mask. 

“Yeah but that wasn’t the question,” Dream points out. “Where is he?”

“I dunno!” 

“Okay so you _don’t_ know everything about the server.”

“Well…” Tommy’s face goes blank for a split second. “Ask me something easy. That was hard.”

“That’s… not the point of this?” 

“Alright then how about you just _tell_ me where Sapnap is?”

“No.”

“Why not?”

“Because then you’ll know too much.”

Tommy rolls his eyes. He mutters something under his breath and shakes his head. Dream hears it loud and clear in his head, just like every other word Tommy has muttered. 

“I am _not_ a cryptid!” Dream objects. “I thought you were leaving.” 

“Well I was _going to_ , but then you started talking about your secrets. And you know me, Dream. I love a good secret.”

“Love to blab about them, maybe.” Dream laughs. Tommy looks offended for a second, then shrugs and agrees. 

“Alright, how about this? Tell me where the server room is and I’ll leave you alone for a whole day.”

“No.”

“An entire week?”

“No.”

“Why not!” Tommy hides his smirk.

“Because…” Because the server room is the only place he feels safe. “Because I don’t want to.” Because it’s the only place where he can hide. No one can find him. It’s just him, and the thousands of lines of carefully crafted code that he’s cultivated since the previous year.

“Okay so you’ll tell Mr. Georgenotfound where it is but not me? I’m better than him, Dream. I’m so much cooler. My subscriber count is higher.”

“George doesn’t even know where it is,” Dream tells him softly. He should stop talking. “Tommy it’s past your bedtime. Don’t make me kick you.”

“You wouldn’t,” Tommy raises his eyebrows. Dreams lifts his hands and a transparent keyboard appears beneath his fingertips. 

“No no no no okay I’m going I’m GOING!” He shouts, scrambling to his settings. Dream laughs, and watches as his finger hovers over the logout button. Part of him doesn’t want Tommy to leave. But they have to maintain their little game.

“One last thing,” Tommy starts. 

“Goodnight Tommy,” Dream turns away and starts walking down the prime path, in the opposite direction of Tommy’s home. He can hear the boy’s thoughts loud and clear in his head. _If I follow him, will he lead me to the server room?_

“Night, dickhead.”

Tommy presses the logout button. 

Dream hears the gentle click in his head. He can feel the lines of computer code humming in his skin, preparing to shut Tommy down for the evening. He turns back to watch as Tommy’s skin goes transparent and his head droops slightly. Dream passes a hand through his torso. The image of his figure flickers slightly, but remains in the same shape. Frozen in time until he decides to return. 

Dream’s alone now. He hates nights the most. That’s when everyone leaves. There’s always a straggler, though, and most of the time it’s George or Sapnap. They ran off earlier, and Dream didn’t bother trying to find them. He noticed when their shutdown codes had started running, both within thirty seconds of one another, and he ignored it. They always came back to him anyways. It didn’t matter if they were gone for a night or two. 

Dream had made a pact with them, when he started playing God. He told them he wouldn’t pry into their head, wouldn’t tamper with them at all. In return, they got to know his secrets. The only thing they didn’t know about, however, was the server room. He hadn’t ever told anyone about the server room.

He wonders absently how Tommy heard about it. He decides to strengthen his security, and pushes the problem out of his mind. Dream raises his hands to his little keyboard again, and types out a teleport command that returns him to his server room. 

It's a small room, and quite simple. Its tall walls are made of white concrete, and the center of the room houses a lectern that has been modified to hold a keyboard instead of a book. There’s no door, so the only way to get in is with the coordinates. Dream moves it constantly out of paranoia. 

“Who the hell told Tommy?” He wonders aloud, sliding his back against the wall. A plain white bed is pushed against the opposite wall, but Dream doesn’t feel like making himself comfortable. He doesn’t feel like he deserves it. Not after today. For a split second he thinks he should message George, but disappoints himself when he remembers that his friend left a long while before the sun set. 

Dream runs through his to-do list in his head. All of it involves coding. It’s just about time for his weekly code runthrough. He still needs to seal the end shut as well. Ranboo was getting a little too comfortable peeking into places he shouldn’t. A few people were starting to get antsy, he realizes. 

“I need a distraction,” He whispers to himself, hanging his head. A million different ideas flood his brain at once. Wilbur could-Schlatt might want to-I could make Tommy...

“No,” Dream says aloud. “Stick to the script.” He tells himself.

_Badboyhalo joined the game_

Dream looks up at his lectern. Bad was almost never on this late.

 _Hey_ Dream types into chat. In the back of his head he can distantly see Bad glancing at the chat and disregarding it completely. Dream frowns. Odd. 

_Vc?_ Dream asks. Bad ignores the message. Dream swipes his right hand through the air in front of him, and a little menu appears. He taps on the option for voice chatting, and joins a channel. As if somehow that’ll get Bad to join him.

He watches Bad for a little while, content with his position on the chilly floor. Everything about his attitude seems off. Even the way he carries himself is different, Dream notices. It’s unsettling, and it makes Dream feel _wrong_.

 _You alright?_ Dream asks in chat. Bad doesn’t even look at it. He grabs a flint and steel, and it takes Dream a moment too long to realize where his friend is standing. In the Badlands. With the egg. He’s going to try to set the vines on fire. 

“No,” Dream says. “Shit. Bad don’t do that!” Dream scrambles to his lectern, hurriedly entering his admin password. Playing God had its perks, and it just so happened that knowing everything about the world was one of them.

 _Bad don’t set the vines on fire_ Dream types quickly, pulling up a little window for him to look at the chat while he’s scanning through the code. Bad glances at the chat and pauses. Dream keeps scouring the code, trying to find the lines he had written for the Badlands. 

The world was driven by a plot, and the code made it relevant. Whatever happens, there’s an equal opposite reaction. At this point in time, the vines aren’t meant to be destroyed. Not yet. And attacking them any sooner will create a disaster. Dream knows he shouldn’t interfere. It’s not his story. He’s the villain in a different fairytale. But Bad’s his friend. 

_Cut off one head two more will take it’s place_ Bad types. Dream stares at the chat. He blinks at the words and curses. Bad strikes the flint against the steel and a roaring flame sputters to life in his hands. 

Dread coils in Dream’s cut. He debates using the kill command. Sapnap could talk him down, Dream realizes. Begrudgingly, he pulls up Sapnap’s code and manually runs it. Sapnap springs to life at the community house, looking around curiously. He knows he didn’t want to be awake. 

_Vc rn_ Dream messages him privately. A short ring sounds shortly thereafter. Dream locks the voice channel.

“Bad’s possessed,” Dream sputters, eyes on his terminal. The code is flying before his eyes now, and he can’t find any flaws. He must have made _some_ mistake somewhere.

“What?” Sapnap asks. He sounds sleepy. Dream feels a twinge of regret. “How did I even get here?”

“Long story,” Dream sighes. “I’ll explain it in a minute but I need you to get to Bad and stop him.”

“It’s already too late,” Sapnap says. Dream stands up straight. 

“What?” 

“I said ‘What’s he doing?’” Sapnap repeats. He sounds irritated now.

“No you didn’t,” Dream says cautiously. He swears under his breath, pulling up another window of code. Sapnap, again.

“Dude you need sleep,” Sapnap tells him. “You spend too much time on this server. I can’t remember the last time I saw you log off.”

“I do,” Dream says defensively. “I log off all the time.” The lie easily slips between his teeth. Dream never leaves the server. He _can’t_. If he left, the code would stop running, and no one would be able to get on. The world would cease to exist until he opened his eyes and ran the code again. In all honesty, Dream wasn’t sure he would want to come back if he left. And that wasn’t fair to his friends. 

Dream types a teleport command into the chat, moving Sapnap to Bad’s coordinates. Sapnap swears colorfully, and shouts at Bad. There’s ringing in Dream’s ears. 

“I can’t do anything about this,” Sapnap exclaims. “Everything’s already on fire!”

“Use a water bucket!” Dream hisses. 

“Why can’t you do this?” Sapnap shouts in response, tugging a bucket out of his pockets. Dream watches him extinguish the flames and swears. The veins are charred and black, and, according to Sapnap, smell like rotting fish. Bad’s laying on the ground at the base of the egg, completely unconscious. 

“Dream,” His friend calls cautiously. 

“On it already,” Dream responds, pulling up Bad’s coding. He has too many windows open now and it’s making it harder for him to think. Too many things to think about, too many problems to solve. Dream closes Sapnap’s codes and let’s Bad’s take their place. He skims the intricately crafted lines of zeros and ones. 

“He crashed?” Dream asks, looking closer at the lines. 

“He’s still here. And he’s like...twitching in his sleep.”

“What?”

Dream runs Bad’s shutdown sequence. It doesn’t start. He tries again. It doesn’t start. Dream swears.

“His code says he’s logged out now,” Dream says, puzzled.

“He’s still very here,” Sapnap confirms. 

“I can’t feel him anymore,” Dream realizes. 

“What does that mean?”

“You remember that I told you that I can see everything?”

“Yeah I remember.” 

“Well I can’t see Bad anymore.”

An error message flashes bright red on Dream’s screen. He swears. A clump of letters appears beneath the large texts, and they melt into a string of words.

_Cut off one head two more will take it’s place._

“Where the hell are you?”

“The server room,” Dream breathes, not caring that he just gave away his biggest secret. 

“Where?”

Dream teleports Sapnap to him, and his friend makes a strange noise upon arriving. He stares up at the screen with Dream, trying to take it all in. 

“Everything’s here,” Dream says. 

“All of it?” 

“Yes, all of it. The codes that control the entire world are in this terminal.”

“That’s how you woke me up,” Sapnap realizes. Dream nods absently, suddenly glad he hadn’t taken off his mask. He didn’t want to seem vulnerable. 

Dream clears the error message and starts running through the code again. 

“Check the community house,” Sapnap suggests over his shoulder. Dream feels an ounce of annoyance at the suggestion. “Bad collapsed there the other day.”

“Why didn’t you tell me?”

“I assumed you knew already,” Sapnap holds his hands up in defence. Dream does as his friend instructs, pulling up yet another window for the chunks of coding surrounding the community house. 

“Now _that’s_ corrupted code if I’ve ever seen it,” Sapnap breathes. 

“It didn’t look like that last week,” Dream responds. They both stare up at the windows for a long minute. 

“What do we do?” Sapnap asks. 

“Clear the chunk,” Dream replies. 

“What? No we can’t do that. That’s the community house!”

“We’ll have to recode the entire thing, then.” Dream sighs. “Either we put in a few extra hours of playtime to make up for the wiped chunk, or we spend days redoing the entire thing.”

Sapnap grumbles and slouches his shoulders. 

“Where’s George? Why can’t he make this decision?”

“I didn’t wake him up,” Dream shrugs absently, running his eyes over the code. How had that happened? “This looks like it was tampered with. It’s not just a fluke.”

“It definitely was tampered with.” Sapnap agrees and points at the screen. “No ‘fluke’ could produce that.”

“Okay but who would have been able to mess with it? No one else knows where this place is. And there’s not that many coders on the server. Tommy asked me about the server room earlier tonight too. That might be connected to this somehow.”

“I can’t keep up with your train of thought,” Sapnap shakes his head. “George should be here for this.” He points out. 

“I know,” Dream reponds. “I don’t want everyone knowing about this place.”

“It’s just George.”

“I know,” Dream repeats, shooting a dirty look at Sapnap from underneath his mask. 

“Okay well we can go somewhere else,” He suggests. 

“Yeah but then we have to explain everything to him,” Dream protests. 

“Bad’s his friend too,” Sapnap frowns at him.

“Fine.”

“You still have to like...explain a good chunk of this to me as well because I’m still half asleep and very confused.”

Dream hums absently while searching for George in his database. 

“Hey Sapnap?” He asks. His friend hums in response. “When you logged off tonight, you weren’t at the community house. How come you-What’re you doing?” 

Dream hears Sapnap pull out his sword, and spins around, groping at the empty space where his sword should be. He can’t beat Sapnap in hand to hand combat on a good day. He mutters a string of curses under his breath. 

“What’re you _doing,_ Sapnap?” He holds up his hands as Sapnap raises his sword to Dream’s neck. The point of it presses against his adam’s apple uncomfortably. 

“You-” He erupts in a fit of coughing. “ _You weren’t supposed to find out about that._ ” He coughs again, and blood stains the hand he raises to his mouth. 

“Sapnap-” 

Sapnap drives the sword straight through him. Dream collapses on the floor in a twitching fit. Not dead. Never dead.

Dream bolts upright in bed, tearing his mask away from his face. He’s surprised to find nothing there. His hands go straight to his neck. No wounds, no scars. Nothing but a bad dream. The text at the bottom corner of his screen fades abruptly. 

_Dream joined the game_

_VC right now_ George types. Dream swears and stares at his blank wall, composing himself. He swipes his hand through the air and opens the voice chat menu. Just as he had done the night before. 

“Where have you been?!” George’s voice erupts in his ear.

“What?” Dream asks, clearly confused. 

“You’ve been missing for three weeks!” George shouts. 

“No I haven’t,” He says slowly. “I was here yesterday.”

“No you weren’t, Dream.” Sapnap’s voice creeps into his head. Dream zeroes in on his location. He’s with George in the community house. Everything looks fine, but it feels _wrong._

“Am I having another dream?” He asks. “Am I awake right now?” 

“Yes,” George hisses. “And things have gotten bad.”

“Ranboo found the stronghold,” Sapnap interjects. 

“Did you have to lead with that?” George asks. 

“It’s important!”

“So are the five hundred other things going wrong right now!”

“Shut up, please,” Dream shouts. The other end of the line goes quiet. “Get out of the community house.”

“We’re not in the community house?” Sapnap says. Dream looks for them again. They’re sitting on stools in the community house, yelling at him over voice chat. That’s exactly where they are. 

“Where are you then?” 

“Behind you,” George’s voice comes out in a hiss. Dream instinctively swings his sword, cutting through air and shouting. 

“What the fuck is going on?” He shouts. 

“Dude what’s going on with you?” Sapnap asks.

“Shut up!” Dream yells, clutching his head in his hands. “Last night you-Bad attacked the egg. And it did _something._ I don’t know what happened.”

“Don’t you know everything?” George asks. 

“I’m supposed to,” He grinds out. “All I know is that Bad attacked the egg, and I called Sapnap and...and asked him for help. But then he stabbed me, and I woke up like this.”

“Are you saying I bested you in a fight?” Sapnap asks. 

“Sapnap,” George groans. 

“Where are you?” He asks again. 

“Outside L’manburg,” Sapnap answers. 

“Okay. I’m going to teleport both of you to me. Don’t get weird.”

“Okay?” 

Dream types the commands with shaky fingers. George first. He waits for a minute, claiming he feels lightheaded. In reality, he’s just unsure if George will hurt him. His friend stares around the room, then at the lectern, then at Dream.

“You look awful,” He remarks. 

“Thank you,” He replies, finally summoning Sapnap. 

“What’s this?” Sapnap asks upon his arrival. 

“The server room,” Dream breathes. “The world code is here.”

“You manage the whole thing?” George asks. Dream nods. He doesn’t want to go over this again. Not with another person. 

“By yourself?” Sapnap raises his eyebrows. “You know we can code.”

“I didn’t want anyone to find out about it,” Dream mutters. “It’s safe here.” They know what he means. Sapnap snorts, because obviously, it’s not. 

“Well we won’t tell anyone,” George promises. “What about Bad?”

“Is he still around?” Dream asks. Sapnap nods. 

“Just distant,” George shrugs. “He’s been spending a lot of time in the Badlands. I’ve been too busy to check on him really. He can fend for himself.” 

“What’s happened?” Dream asks, ruffling his hair. His ears are uncomfortably warm. 

“A lot,” George groans. “We’ve all sort of been stuck here for three weeks.”

“What?”

“You logged out one afternoon and then the logout button stopped working. So everyone that was here when you left was trapped, and everyone who wasn’t here wasn’t able to log in.”

“Who was logged in?” Dream asked. He can feel concern bubbling in his stomach. How had he logged out? He didn’t remember doing that. 

“Us, Bad, Tommy, Techno, Fundy, and Ranboo,” Sapnap recites. “And of course Ghostbur. But he really can’t leave so he just sort of watched the chaos unfold.”

“Uh, okay,” Dream drawls. “So what happened?”

“Ranboo started getting really spastic on the second or third day. He said that someone had cut off his head? I dunno, it didn’t make sense to any of us.” George says. Dream gives a heavy sigh and puts his head in his hands. 

“Is that supposed to mean something?” Sapnap asks. 

“Yeah, but I’ll tell you about it when George is done.”

“Anyways,” George cleared his throat. “Ranboo started randomly teleporting everywhere, and sometimes he would pass out for a few minutes and then get all weird and go burn down a building or something.”

“But he never remembered it,” Sapnap interjects. George nods. 

“Which is normal,” George says. “But he was just doing it a _lot_. And no one could stop him. So we’ve lost a lot of land to that. Tommy and Techno found a bloodvine in the community house and have spent the last week trying to get rid of it without consequence. Techno is just as affected by it as Bad is, though, so Tommy's really on his own.”

“Is that it?” Dream wipes his hands on his pants. He had been expecting a lot worse, especially from them. 

“Yeah,” George responds. “But it was a lot to deal with.”

“I’m sure,” Dream brings up the chat and types _You guys can log out now._ A steady stream of logout messages follows. A weight lifts from Dream’s shoulders. The lectern starts beeping, just like it does every time something goes wrong.

“So what’s your deal?” Sapnap asks, glancing at the lectern. Dream ignores them and goes for the terminal. He pulls up the error message and frowns. 

_Cut off one head two more will take it’s place_

“So obviously that means something,” Sapnap yawns. Dream looks at his friends. They look like they walked through the nether multiple times with just the skin on their back. 

“Yeah,” He coughs. “So Bad got on last night, right before I was going to start my weekly code check. He tried to set the vines on fire. I told him not to, and he responded with ‘Cut off one head two more will take it’s place’. I think he was possessed. I’m not sure why the vines would want him to destroy them, though.”

“Maybe it has something to do with the phrase? Maybe the vines wanted to get rid of Bad, so they sacrificed him and doubled their power?” Sapnap asks, lifting his shoulders. 

“Maybe.” Dream hums. “But after he set them on fire, I woke Sapnap up and told him to try to stop Bad, because I was running through the codes trying to find out how he had been possessed. Sapnap said he fainted and started twitching, and then I realized that I couldn’t see him anymore. So I brought Sapnap here, and he told me that I should check the coding in the chunks around the community house, because Bad had collapsed there earlier that week. It turns out, it had been altered by someone. Like, that wasn’t a bug. There was no way that was a bug. Someone messed with the code. I have no clue who it could have been, though. This is the only place you can get to the coding for the world.”

“You didn’t tell _anyone_?” George asks. Dream levels a look at him.

“ _You_ didn’t even know about it,” Dream points out. 

“Fair enough.”

“After that, Sapnap stabbed me and I woke up.” Dream finishes. 

“I’m sorry?” Sapnap asks.

“I asked why you were at the community house when you logged in, because I remember when you logged out you hadn’t been there. Then you pulled out your sword, and your voice got super...weird, and you started coughing blood.”

“And then I stabbed you?” Sapnap asks. Dream nods. “That’s metal.”

“More scary than anything,” George says. “We clearly have some problems.”

“Yeah, well you guys should get some rest before we do anything.” Dream tells his friends. “I can’t believe I was asleep for two weeks.”

“Three,” Sapnap corrects with a scratchy voice. Dream’s eyes shoot to him. He stares helplessly, frozen in fear. “Three weeks.” Dream sighs. He sounds normal. His body takes a second to loosen up. When he looks at Sapnap again, his eyes are glowing red. 

“Why’re you looking at me like that?” He asks. Dream shakes his head breathlessly.

“Let’s leave him alone for a while,” George tugs on Sapnaps sleeve, turning to where the door should be. “Um...how do we get out of here?”

“I’ll teleport you.” Dream shakes out his hands and opens chat again. Sapnap checks his menu to find the coordinates of the server room. Dream sniggers when he finds out they’re hidden. 

“I’ll be here when you’re ready,” Dream tells them, teleporting them to the nether portal outside of the community house. As soon as they’re out of sight, he lunges for the terminal.

“Do you need anything?” Sapnap asks. “Like food or something?”

“No,” He says hurriedly, bringing up the code for the crimson egg. “I’ll talk to you guys later.” 

“Dream,” Sapnap calls before he leaves the call. “Maybe you should recheck the source code for the community house.” Dream nods absentmindedly, then realizes his friends can no longer see them. With quick verbal affirmation, Dream leaves the voice call and dives into the code, dissecting it to find any errors. 

“There’s nothing here!” He shouts after a long hour. He goes back over it with tired eyes, and finally catches something that shouldn’t be there. _Of course,_ He thinks to himself. The bloodvine. George had told him it was there. How could he have forgotten?

Dream hastily teleports himself to George, who isn’t far from the community house. He takes off towards it, ignoring George’s stare of confusion. He trails Dream for a while, and watches him push through the door with a flint and steel in his hand. 

The bloodvines that were supposed to exist weren’t supposed to be tampered with. But the ones that _weren't_ supposed to be there...setting them on fire was easier than removing them from the source code. 

Dream sparks the flint, and the vine ignites. He watches it burn for a long while. It slowly melts into a waxy pool at his feet that bubbles and spreads like honey. It makes him sick to look at. 

The fire burns out and Dream returns to his server room, leaving George’s shadow to stare at the space where he had stood moments before. He re-enters his password into his lectern, and runs through the community house code again. The code for the bloodvine still remains, untouched and very intact. Dream touches his screen with his finger, highlighting the code. With a single, fluid motion, he deletes the code. 

A splitting pain roars through his head instantly, and the terminal flashes a bright red before shutting down completely. Dream stares at it, clutching his head vigorously. 

_Unknown whispers to you: Cut off one head and two will take its place._

Dream stares at the message. He rubs his eyes. _This can’t also be a dream_ , he thinks.

_Unknown whispers to you: You are the second head._

“That’s not how this works,” Dream laughs hesitantly. Restarting the terminal, he finds the folder of important plot codes he has saved, and opens another folder called CRIMSON_ARC. He created the folders as shortcuts to make it easier to get to important things. At times like this, they come in handy. 

_Unknown whispers to you: We are never-ending. You cannot rid this world of us without sacrificing yourself._

“That’s stupid,” Dream says. He’s not sure why he’s entertaining the entity speaking to him. Maybe it’s to buy time. Maybe he should get Sapnap and George again. Dream locates the source code for the egg, and stares at it with a blank face. It’s definitely different than it had been the last time he checked it. It was morphing on its own, right before his eyes. Dream’s finger hovers over the screen. He highlights the code and copies it. Performing a series of complicated functions, Dream pastes the code in a new folder under his name, and deletes the original. The terminal screen goes black. The world around him starts to spin. Dream sinks to his knees. Nausea rolls in his gut, and he thinks he might keel over and die right there. 

“Shit,” He swears, blinking to focus his eyes. He takes in a deep breath, and lets it out slowly. The code shouldn’t have done anything to him. He hadn’t moved it to his player folder. At least, he thought he hadn’t. The more he tried to think about it, the less he remembered.

“You are the second head,” Dream says with a voice that is not his own. He tries to shake it off, but his head won’t move. His hands begin shaking, and he can’t stop their tremor. “Ranboo is the first. Good little soldiers, you will be.”

Dream struggles back to the lectern. It makes him enter his password again. The screen goes blank. There’s nothing there. One thought occupies his mind now. Ranboo. _Find Ranboo_. He doesn’t know he’s the other head. He doesn’t know how _great_ the egg is. 

Dream inhales a deep breath, suddenly content. The system says that Ranboo’s code isn’t running, but Dream knows better now. Not everything is handed to him on a silver platter. Some things he has to look for. 

_ranboo_ Dream’s fingers slowly type out the letters. _where are you?_

_outside techno’s house_

_im coming to visit,_ Dream types. He hastily types out a teleport command to Ranboo’s location and opens his eyes to a blanket of snow. Ranboo stands a few feet away from him, staring in concern. 

Ranboo chirps softly in surprise and joins a voice call. Dream follows suit, flexing his hands. A warm sensation develops at the base of his neck, pooling in him comfortably. 

“Hey Dream,” Ranboo says hesitantly. Dream stares into his eyes for a brief second, taking in the vividness of their coloring. 

“Ranboo,” He dips his chin slightly. Something in him is surprised at the voice that leaves his mouth. It isn’t his own, but Ranboo can’t tell the difference. Interesting. 

“What’s up?” Ranboo asks. 

“Walk with me,” Dream waves his hand and starts through the snow, boots crunching over the fresh powder. Ranboo trails behind him cautiously, all too aware of the fact that they’re heading straight towards the stronghold. 

A chill licks up Dream’s spine, but it isn’t from the cold. It’s more of a...a feeling of harmony. A feeling of release. Something settles into his soul, and euphoria floods his veins. His mind is no longer his own. He belongs to a different entity now, an entirely different God. 

“Where are we going?” Ranboo asks. Dream glances back at him.

“You know,” He muses. Ranboo stares at him in fear. Although he towers over Dream, he’s always been afraid of him. Now, Dream realizes, they are one in the same. Fear shouldn’t exist between them. They’re two heads of the same creature, their souls entwined in a crisp, red flame of power. 

“Why are you afraid of me, Ranboo?” Dream asks. “We are the same now.” _Make him see the truth._ Something in Dream’s head screams. _Make him know the truth._

“I’m not _afraid_ of you,” Ranboo says slowly. “You’ve always been intimidating, though.”

“Ranboo, what do you know about the Crimson Egg?” 

Ranboo’s face shifts to realization at that. He already knew about the egg? Why did Dream have to-

“Not a lot,” He admits with a shrug. Dream stops in the snow, shuffling around slightly. “It’s powerful.”

“Very powerful,” Dream hums. 

“Are you here to recruit me or something?” Ranboo cocks his head. “Because Bad came by the other day and tried me into it already.”

“Into what?” Dream asks. 

“I dunno,” Ranboo shrugs. “His cult, I guess.”

“Pft,” Dream rolls his eyes underneath his mask and keeps walking. While he was gone, someone had constructed a loose path down to the entrance of the stronghold. He starts carefully down it, careful of where he sets his feet. 

“I don’t need to recruit you,” Dream tells him. “I just want to make sure we’re on the same page.”

“About the egg?” Ranboo throws his arms out to balance himself on the path, and slips through the door of the stronghold. It closes behind them with chilling finality. 

“Yeah,” Dream says, surveying the rooms before them. They’re dimly lit and fairly untouched. He lets out a sigh at the familiar sight. He might not be himself anymore, but the stronghold still feels like home. No. The _egg_ was home. Nothing had ever felt like home before. There was only the egg. 

“And...don’t think I don’t know you’ve been poking around the stronghold, Ranboo. You’re getting awfully comfortable sticking your nose in places it shouldn’t be.” 

Ranboo gives a short little laugh at that. He finds humor in Dream’s phrasing, as Ranboo doesn’t exactly have a nose. 

“Well, I miss my home,” He admits softly. A strange feeling floods Dream’s stomach. For a split second he thinks it might be compassion, and he dismisses it quickly.

“We all do,” Dream walks through the doorway of the portal room. It’s only missing one eye of ender. He huffs a small laugh. “We have a new home now, though. The egg provides for all our needs.”

Ranboo watches Dream walk up the stairs and stare into the space where the portal should be. He memorized it’s unique design eons ago. The placement of the stars on the black canvas brings him a sense of otherworldly peace. 

“Why are we here, Dream?”

Dream pulls an eye of ender from his pocket. He wasn’t aware that he had brought one with him. He tries to recall when he had put it in his pocket, and grunts when the curiosity disappears suddenly. The egg won’t let him think for himself. _That’s alright,_ He tells himself. _The egg knows what’s best._

“Why do you wear a crown, Ranboo?” Dream drops the eye into its slot, brushing his fingertips against the smooth endstone of the portal. Adrenaline rushes through his body, making him feel alive. “What does it do for you? Does it give you power?”

“I just think it looks cool,” Ranboo admits quietly. “What are you doing?” Dream glances back at the boy that he had once called his friend. Now his ally, Dream only wants the best for him. He wants the child to thrive. To flourish. 

“When you put it on do you dream of ruling?” Something in the back of Dream’s mind protests against his words, against the plan that clicks into place on his tongue. 

“Sometimes, I suppose.” Ranboo shrugs, watching Dream wave him forward slowly. When he hesitates, Dream’s free hand begins moving towards the sword on his hip. Ranboo ascends the stairs, staring down at both Dream and the portal.

“With me on your side, you could have that. With the power of the egg, we could make the entire smp bow to us. We were meant to be, Ranboo.” Dream reaches up and grabs Ranboo by the collar, holding him above the portal threateningly. 

“Dream…Dream, stop!” Ranboo grasps his hands, trying to keep himself from falling into it. Fear clouds his eyes, and his breaths come in gasping pants. The smile on Dream’s mask has never felt more menacing, Ranboo realizes. 

“Ranboo, the crown on your head doesn’t mean anything if you don’t make people respect it.” Dream’s voice is harsh. There’s nothing kind about it. “Don’t you want to know how it feels to reign?”

“Let me go,” Ranboo breathes. Dream yanks him upwards slightly, so that Ranboo’s fearful eyes can only see the cruel smile of his mask. The new face of his nightmares. For a split second he thinks he should let the boy go. He most likely won’t remember their encounter in an hour or two. An overwhelming sensation in his mind wants him to free the boy, to send him home. 

So he does. Dream’s fingers release the fabric of Ranboo’s suit and he stands up straight to watch Ranboo fall backwards into the portal, grasping at empty air. Ranboo’s fearful face stains Dream’s mind before he disappears completely. 

He stares at the empty space for a moment before stomping on the closest eye of ender, sealing the portal shut forever. A wasted opportunity. It flickers slightly before disappearing entirely, replaced with the same empty space that had been there only a minute before. 

Dream turns away from the ruined portal. He doesn’t look back. _No one will look for Ranboo_ , a smooth voice whispers into his mind. _If they do, you will deal with them._


End file.
